


Fire in those Veins

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Darling Pan - Freeform, F/M, neverlanders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:26:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wendy decides to challenge Peter.</p><p>Inspired by dailymalfoy's gif on tumblr of Wendy pressing a sword to Peter's throat. </p><p>Set around the time our lovely heroine decided to become a kickass queen in 'Howl at Hallowed Ground'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire in those Veins

_ Fire in those Veins _

__

Wendy has always had a soft spot for existential epiphanies, particularly when concerning her place on Neverland. Perhaps it’s because she turns to her own mind for comfort so often, reaching for the stories she keeps locked in there; tales of handsome princes whose smiles are pure and kind, princesses who bear no bruises, fairies whose magic never runs out. She reverts into herself when the pain is too much to bear, switches off, glazes her eyes with tears and locks doors on the outside world.

 

Since the pain is almost  _always_ too much to bear, she’s had a lot of time for self-reflection. Self-loathing, especially.

Her most recent epiphany came in the form of what one might call a  _rude awakening,_ courtesy of the Lost Boys. Though she loathes them, though she wishes them dead (she hasn’t made this thought conscious yet, is only slightly aware of how her teeth grit and her blood boils and her fingers  _itch_ ), she knows that her new-found strength was forged in the fires of their cruelties.

Wendy had promised herself she would be better. That she would be like the black clouds rolling in over the clear blue sky, dark and stormy and unforgiving, hot and harsh, fury that no-one can escape from.

She holds her head high, and makes herself an inferno. Scalding to the touch, her soft edges sharpened to a point; she bites, she scratches, she  _never_ cries. She won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing her heart break.

Peter’s the worst. He takes special delight in tormenting her, seeing how far he can push til she breaks. He spits awful words from his twisted mouth, hisses them from between those crocodile’s teeth – words of her family, of the Husband she longs for and will never get, will never hold. She had tried to think  _they’re only words sticks and stones sticks and stones_ but of course, that mantra never worked. Peter’s insults have gathered poison, over the years, and once they had hit her like a physical blow, sending her reeling backwards to collapse at his feet.

Now, she only uses them to stoke her fires.

He looks at her as if she’s a bird, as if she’s brittle, easily bent and snapped – but Wendy has taken the sour hand she has been dealt and forged it,  _burnt_ it, to her bones. He acts as if his words chill her to the core, but she knows that if he is ice (frost behind sharp teeth blood frozen in her veins), then she is almost certainly a match for him, for every dark whisper he has sent to her heart has been broiled in the steel she wears beneath her skin. She is fire, the scorching furnace towering behind her eyes.

She will not be cowed.

And if Wendy is a believer in epiphany, she is also a devout follower of _opportunity._ She knows that the only way to gain any sort of footing in the odd games she and Peter play is to let him see the strength in her.

So she waits. Watches. Tests the water, so to speak. She slaps him away when he goes to touch her, coats her tongue in poison and gives sharpest edge to the mean thoughts she never dared to voice, kicks him, bites him, laughs at him –

And none of it works. It angers him, yes, but he still walks from each of their encounters as if he’s won.

This goes on for a full decade until Wendy finally figures out what to do. What he wants.

Peter thrives on games, and he’s becoming bored with the ones they play together. She needs to step it up, to throw him off-balance and give him a brand-new factor to work with. To  _challenge_ him.

Her plan is executed one afternoon when the breeze is cool and the Lost Boys are feeling lazy, having just returned from their adventure for the day. They are scattered about the camp, cleaning weapons, eating, mending clothes, tending to injuries. This had once been her job, but upon realising that in order to survive the kindness in her heart had to be gone, she gave up all motherly duties. She owed these boys no compassion, and they would not be prising it from her with their greedy, grubby fingers.

Wendy sits on a log next to Tootles, eyeing the blade in Peter’s belt. A sword, stolen from the pirates, the steel of it glinting in the pale light of day. She’s barely listening to what her friend is saying, her mind being so focused on the opportunity that has presented itself to her.

All Wendy has to do now is get close to Peter, take the weapon from his belt, and press him up against the tree that stands behind him. Demand to be let go, of course – he can’t be given the upper-hand that would come with knowing she’s made any sort of effort in winning their game. She’s quick enough, to be sure. Wendy has spent ten years teaching her body to be as strong as her mind, and the hard work has certainly paid off. Her muscles are hardened, rippling faintly under her skin when she moves. If she catches him by surprise, it won’t be difficult to carry out her plan.

She looks at her hands. Calloused, rough, not at all like a lady’s. Her nails are caked with dirt and blood, not all of it her own. What would her mother say? She thinks it would be something along the lines of  _oh, my dear heart,_ and then the rest of the sentence falls off into the complex abyss of her own thoughts. She can barely remember what her mother even  _looks_ like, nowadays, much less her innermost workings.

Wendy presses her lips together, and stands. She shoots a small, tight smile at Tootles, and walks briskly over to Peter.

The boy in question looks up immediately, a lazy grin playing about his sharp mouth, an eyebrow raised at her determined expression. “Yes, Wendy-bird?” he asks, clacking his teeth.

She doesn’t answer. Planting one hand firmly on his chest, her other wrapping around the hilt of his blade, she shoves him with all the strength she can muster. He stumbles back, and the momentum draws the sword from his belt with only minor effort on her part. With a snarl she barely realises comes from her own lips, she pulses forward, bringing the weapon up to press against the smooth, white column of his throat.

Peter’s spine smacks against the tree, and she’s on him only seconds after, pinning one leg between his to keep him in place. Maybe that’s not the singularreason (her skin tingles with the prospect of flustering him), but it’s the only one she has room for, now. Shock flits across his features for a moment – in his eyes, sucked in with the gasp through his lips – before being replaced by a kind of smug fascination.

The camp is silent. No doubt, they are stupefied by her display of aggression. Nobody ever suspects the bird of hiding teeth behind the beak. Nobody ever thinks there will be claws beneath the downy feathers.

Something alights in the boy king’s eyes as she presses her hips to his, the blade digging into his flesh. Wendy leans forward, jolting as his hand comes up to rest on the thigh that isn’t pinning him to the tree. His thumb smooths over the wrinkled material, and it might have been gentle if not for the bite of his nail at the end of each stroke.

“Let me go, Peter,” she warns him, her voice low and commanding.

“You’re the one holding  _me_ captive.” He says, and there’s a cool amusement to his tone that makes her blood  _boil._

“I want to  _leave_.” She hisses, and gives him the sting of the sword nicking the underside of his jaw for emphasis.

Peter jerks backwards, but his narrow hips do the opposite, and he wets his lips. His chest heaves, once, and then he grins. It is different from his customary, close-lipped smirk that he reserves just for her – it is a full-blown smile of elation, of excitement. “Not when things are only  _just_ getting fun, Darling,” he taunts, unaware that this was what she wanted the whole time.

She growls, and lets him go. Takes a few steps back. His clothes are rumpled; his shirt is untucked, a few buttons undone where she’d pressed against him. A red line of blood from the small scratch she’d given him trickles, agonisingly slow, down his long neck. She finds herself aching with the need to lick it away.

Peter stares at her, his hands gripping the bark behind him, eyes dark with an emotion she doesn’t want to know about. He moistens his lips.

“ _Fine_.” She grits out, and turns away before she’s overcome with the urge to go back and see if his mouth tastes as sharp as it looks.

As she stalks away from the camp to her treehouse, victory singing in her throat, Peter’s voice breaks the silence.

“You’ve been hiding your fire from me, Wendy-bird,” he calls, and his voice is so ragged that it quickens her heartbeat, “and I  _like_ fire.”


End file.
